


just my soul responding

by ohmcgee



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, soulbond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul sickness (n) - condition in which the bond between two soulmates has not been consummated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just my soul responding

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Master of None](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5669134) by [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG). 



> Follow up to [Master of None](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5669134) which you should definitely read first!

Bruce wakes up in a cold sweat, not for the first time that week. The sheets are tangled up in knots around his thighs and he immediately reaches for the bottle of aspirin on his nightstand, pours four into the palm of his hand and swallows them dry. It does nothing for the constant, dull ache in the back of his head or the pain that seems to be buried deep within his bones, but it helps with his injuries from the night’s patrol and eventually he’s able to fall back to sleep. 

He dreams he’s flying among the stars, of hazel eyes and a laugh brighter than the sun. He dreams of the same thing he dreams of every night and in the morning he does the same thing he does every morning: he pushes it out of his mind and goes about his day. 

 

: : :

 

“You look like death,” Barry says next to him. At the head of the table Bruce is droning on about new safety procedures or something equally boring and unnecessary, Hal’s really not paying attention. The searing pain behind his eyeballs is kind of taking precedence. “Or like, something death chewed up and spit out. The ran over a few times with it’s car.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Hal says. “You look nice too.”

“I’m serious,” Barry says. “You need to get checked out, see the doc. I really think you might be coming down with something.”

“I’m fine,” Hal grits out. “Just drop it, Barry.”

After the meeting Hal’s moving too slow and Clark catches him before he can get out of the room without someone else commenting on how shitty he looks. 

“Hal,” Clark says. “How are you?”

“Super,” Hal coughs. “How are you? Good? Great. Now move out of my way.”

Clark scowls at him and doesn’t move.

“I’m _fine_ , Clark,” Hal says. “Or I will be, okay? Just need a few hours of shut eye and I’ll be right as rain, promise.”

“Alright,” Clark says, narrowing his eyes at him suspiciously. “But make sure you get that rest. You look like hell.”

“Aye-aye,” Hal says and gives him a mocking salute before heading to his room, swallowing a handful of pills and passing out. 

 

: : :

 

Bruce is in the middle of a stake-out, trying to figure out who’s behind the latest arms deal in Gotham when his left arm starts suddenly _screaming_ in pain and he drops his binoculars off the side of the roof, giving away his position. 

When they attack he has to fight one handed, his left still in so much pain he can barely stand to breathe. It feels like it’s on fire, like if he looked down his entire arm would be engulfed in flames, but he has to concentrate on the task at hand. He makes it out only by throwing a smoke bomb in the middle of the fray and grappling to the next building.

By the time he gets back to the cave the pain has lessened somewhat, but the heat is still there, radiating up and down his entire arm. 

“What the hell,” Bruce mutters as he inspects his arm in the mirror to see what the cause of it is, only to find nothing there. Not even a scratch. 

“Is something the matter, Master Bruce?” Alfred appears, holding a tray of bandages and painkillers at his side.

“No, Alfred,” Bruce says, taking the bottle of painkillers anyway. “I’m fine.”

Before going to bed, he makes a call. 

“You’re injured,” he says when Hal answers the phone. 

“Who the fuck -- it’s four in the goddamn _morning_ , asshole.”

“Your left arm,” Bruce says. “What happened?”

Hal sighs into the phone. “Oh right,” he says. “It’s you.”

Bruce doesn’t reply and finally Hal says, “I got hit with a blaster. Hurt like a motherfuck, but there’s no permanent damage.” A beat, then, “You felt it, didn’t you?”

Bruce glances briefly at the phantom pain in his arm, presses his finger into it and hears Hal gasp on the other end.

He hangs up the phone.

 

: : : 

 

“You’re not fine,” Clark says calmly after Bruce passes out during a standard training session. “So don’t even try to say it.”

“Clark,” Bruce starts. “I don’t need your mother-henning. I must have caught a bug. I’ll see Leslie in the --”

“Bruce,” Clark says, grabbing hold of his shoulder when Bruce starts to sway in place. “Stop this. You don’t have a cold.”

“Oh?” Bruce sneers at him. “Your powers suddenly include diagnoses as well?”

“You have soul sickness.” Clark says bluntly, tired of dancing around the subject. “And so does Hal. Bruce, you need to --”

Bruce knows it’s going to hurt him more than it hurts Clark, but he punches him in the jaw anyway. 

“Stay out,” Bruce snarls at him with as much vitriol as he can muster. “Of my business.”

 

: : :

 

Bruce tackles this situation the only way he knows how. He reads everything he can get his hands on, pulls research from every possible source until he knows everything there is to know. He even runs samples of his and Hal’s DNA to try to find the source, but comes up with nothing.

Bruce has always hated magic and anything that coudn’t be explained away by science and this business of soul-marks seems to fall into that category. There’s not one clean proof of evidence that flat out says he and Hal Jordan are somehow _connected_ except for the stupid marks on their skin. 

He _hates_ it. He honestly doesn’t remember hating anything quite as much as this. He doesn’t belong to anyone and no one, especially Hal Jordan, belong to him. It’s completely illogical, irrational, and it just won’t _work._

But regardless of how hard he tries to make it go away, it’s still there, and it’s interfering with every facet of his life. It’s putting his life in danger on a nightly basis and because of that, putting other people in danger and Bruce just can’t abide that. So, he makes a decision.

It might not be the right decision or the logical decision, but it’s what has to be done. 

 

: : :

 

“We need to talk,” Bruce says . He’s sitting at Hal’s kitchen table and Hal would wonder how the fuck he got in if he was talking to literally anyone else. As it is, he just sighs and drops his keys on the counter, grabs a beer out of the fridge. 

“Good to see you too, Bats,” he says. “Corona?”

“No,” Bruce says. “Sit down. We need to talk about our...situation.”

Hal snorts, leans back against the counter and downs half the bottle at once. “So you’re acknowledging it now, huh?”

“Look, I --”

“No you look, you sanctimonious prick. You’ve already made it pretty damn clear how you feel about this whole thing. I really don’t need to go over it again, okay?”

“I think we should consummate it.”

“You --” Hal starts. “Did you just say _consummate_?”

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you getting the headaches?” He asks. “The dreams?”

“Shit,” Hal says, giving him an odd look. “I thought that was just me.”

Bruce reaches over and squeezes Hal’s right shoulder, digs his thumb and forefinger into the spot where Bruce got shot two nights ago and they both grit their teeth to keep from crying out in pain. “We feel each other’s pain,” Bruce says. “It’s a distraction I cannot afford any longer.”

“A distraction,” Hal snorts. “Right.”

“I’ve done an extensive bit of reading on the subject and apparently if we consummate the connection, the migraines and shared pain will be diminished.”

Hal stares at him for about ten minutes straight before he says, “You want to fuck me. So you can do your job better.” He stands up so quick his chair falls backward and clacks against the tile loudly. “Go to hell, Bruce.”

 

: : :

 

Hal storms out of his own goddamn apartment and walks into the first bar he comes across. 

“What’ll it be?” The bartender asks and Hal says, “Everything. I'm not leaving here until I can't feel my face.”

He can't believe the fucking nerve Bruce had. First he tells him to his face that soulmarks are basically nothing more than an annoyance, ignores him for WEEKS even though he's apparently been going through the same hell Hal has, then he breaks into his apartment and expects Hal to bend over just so he can be more _efficient_? Fuck that. 

Hal throws back shot after shot until he can't feel anything anymore, then starts surveying the bar. It’s been almost a month since he got laid and he fucking deserves it. So he grabs the first guy with black hair and a jawline and drags him into the men's room without a second thought. 

 

: : :

 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says, his voice shaking with concern. “Perhaps I should call Dr. Thompkins.”

“No,” Bruce grits out as he thrashes on the bed. “She can't -- help with this.”

“Sir, Dr. Thompkins is the best --”

“She can't!” Bruce growls as another spike of pain shoots through him. 

“Whyever not!” Alfred shouts back, frantic. “I cannot just stand here and watch you suffer like this, Bruce. There must be something --”

“It's soul sickness,” Bruce grits out, disgusted, his back arching during another wave of it. He can feel everything -- the warmth of Hal’s skin, his pleasure, someone else’s _hands_ all over him. Bruce screams through the bright, searing pain in his chest.

“Ah,” Alfred says calmly and lays a fresh cool cloth on Bruce's forehead. “Then I daresay you probably deserve this.”

“I'm afraid,” Bruce says, going limp when the pain subsides for the moment. “You might be right.”

 

: : :

 

The next morning Hal wakes up with something a hangover would piss itself over. He hurts _everywhere_. He hurts so deep and cripplingly it makes him curl into the fetal position and sob into his pillow. 

Is this what's going to happen anytime he has sex with someone who isn't Bruce? Jesus _christ_. If Hal wasn't very literally trying to hold himself together, he'd put his fist through the fucking wall. 

So, of course that’s when the message from Oa projects out of his ring calling him in for a mission. 

Hal groans and pulls the covers over his head. “This is gonna suck.”. 

 

: : : 

 

When Bruce wakes up, the headaches are gone. The searing, brittle pain behind his ribs is gone. 

In fact, everything is gone. 

He can’t feel Hal anywhere on him.

It -- he knows he should feel relieved about this, that they finally managed to sever the connection somehow and everything can go back to normal, but the panic surging in his chest is less than relief. In the back of his head, Bruce always knew that hoping they could sever the soulbond was only wishful thinking. In all of his extensive research he never came across a case of two people actually breaking the connection, not even once. Which means that if he can’t feel Hal anymore, if the headaches are gone, then it can’t mean anything good.

“I need to find him,” he says to Clark once he gets to the Watchtower. “He has to be -- Clark,” Bruce buries his face in his hands. “I fucked up.”

“I know,” Clark says, putting his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll find him.”

 

: : :

 

When they finally manage to find Hal he’s a hostage on one of Okaara’s moons, his ring as depleted as the rest of his body. He’s unconscious when they load him onto the ship and Bruce lets Clark fly for once, stays with Hal in the medical bay and clasps their hands together as the monitors beep and the fluids slowly replenish him. 

“I am undoubtedly the worst possible person you would ever want for a soulmate,” Bruce says to him. “I’m selfish and arrogant and all the things you’ve always accused me of being. I have no idea how to do this, Hal.”

Bruce closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of the machines, of Hal’s too soft breathing. 

“But when you wake up, I think I would like to try.”

Hal doesn’t spontaneously wake up like in the movies, but when Bruce sees the spike in his heart rate on the monitors he smiles. 

 

: : :

 

Hal wakes up two days later, blinks his eyes open and then tries again because is that really Bruce slumped over in a chair looking like he’s been there for the past week? 

“You look like shit,” Hal says and watches Bruce slowly blink his eyes open, sees them widen with shock and maybe a little something else, then he’s crossing the room and grabbing Hal’s face between his hands. 

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“Do what,” Hal says. “My job? I’m pretty sure I --”

Bruce kisses him, which can’t be pleasant because his mouth tastes like death and is about as dry as that moon he got stranded on. 

“-- can’t do anything about that.”

“Fine,” Bruce says. “But next time you tell me before you go.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Hal says, lifting an eyebrow at him curiously.

“No,” Bruce says. “But I am something to you. If you’ll still let me be.”

Hal closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Bruce says, taking his hand. “This time, yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> No porn this time, but there might be an epilogue in the near future. :*


End file.
